Athy's libraries of the past

In the days immediately following the Great Famine Athy had a reading room where a lending library was available with books to borrow, in addition to the Irish and English daily newspapers.  That first library was operated by the Athy Literary and Scientific Institute which was founded in September 1848, its facilities being available for ‘the young men of Athy engaged in mercantile pursuits during the day.’  The Institute’s stated objective was ‘the study and advancement of science and literature.’  The Institute’s library was established following a committee meeting on 2^nd December 1848 and while books could be borrowed by members, dictionaries, atlases and periodicals were not to be lent.  The library received gifts of books from many locals including shop owner Alexander Duncan who stated that he was doing so ‘as an earnest of the interest he felt in the society.’

 

A year later on 3^rd October 1849 the institute became known as ‘The Athy Mechanics Institute’.  The Grand Jury room in the Town Hall which had been used for meetings and lectures and housed the institute’s library, proved inadequate.  On 1^st August 1850 the members of the Mechanics Institute agreed to rent three rooms in Edward Duggan’s house.  The location of Duggan’s house is not known but a letter to the local press in November 1863 referred to ‘a large swamp around the rooms of the lamented exchange bounded on the west by the Barrow, on the east by the dock and the Literary Mechanics reading room and on the south by that part of Emily Square known as “rotten row” and on the north by public houses and the bridewell’.

 

The select committee of the House of Commons on public libraries heard evidence in 1849 and in relation to Ireland Mr. G. Hamilton M.P. claimed: ‘The Irish people do not read because they have no access to books, not because they cannot read.’  The Mechanics Institute Library, restricted as it was to members who paid ten shillings per year membership fee, was a private members library and so could not be regarded as Athy’s first public library.

 

The first public library in the town of Athy opened in the Town Hall on 1^st December 1927.  It was operated by Kildare County Council as the local Urban District Council had earlier relinquished its powers under the Public Libraries Act.  A local library committee was set up and was intended to comprise the local Parish Priest Canon Mackey and his three curates, Fr. Ryan, Fr. Browne and Fr. Kinnane who were to be joined by Rev. Dunlop, the local Church of Ireland Rector and Rev. Meek of the Presbyterian Church.  The six clerics were to have had as fellow committee members five local Urban District Councillors and the Town Clerk James Lawler who would act as the library secretary.  However, Canon Mackey, who had earlier crossed swords with the local Council, refused to come on the Committee for what he declared were ‘reasons obvious to the Council’.  He was joined in his boycott of the library committee by his senior Curate, Fr. Kinnane.  The Committee in time brought on board more lay members and the first librarian appointed was Mr. B. Brambley of Emily Square. 

 

Choosing ‘suitable titles for Athy folk’ as reported in the local newspapers, was a task assigned to the library sub-committee comprising Fr. M. Browne, T.C. O’Gorman, Manager of the local Hibernian Bank and P.J. Murphy, draper from Emily Square.  The library opened on 1^st December 1927 and initially stayed open one evening a week from 7 to 9 p.m.  This was soon extended to two evenings a week.  From these early beginnings the library service in Athy developed, moving from the Town Hall to the Courthouse and back again to the Town Hall, all the time staying within the confines of Emily Square.  On Thursday March 1^st our new library will be officially opened in the former Dominican Church on the opposite side of the River Barrow to Emily Square. 

 

I remember the library of the 1950s.  It opened in the evening times only to give access to the books which were shelved in a small room in the Town Hall which up to recently was used as a reference room.  Accessed by the doorway and stairs opposite the house of Mrs. Josephine Gibbons, the scarcity of motor traffic presented no great dangers for library users.  Nowadays that same entrance leading onto Emily Row is deemed too dangerous to use and is permanently closed.

 

The new community library which opens on Thursday March 1^st will be a formidable addition to the cultural landscape of Athy.  The Heritage Centre, the Arts Centre and the community library form a cultural triumvirate ready to celebrate our place, our people, our past and by doing so enrich our lives and make Athy a better place in which to live.

Carol Taaffe's Essay on Athy's old Libratry

The planned opening of Athy’s new library in the architectural gem which was the Dominican Church prompts me to hand over this week’s Eye on the Past to my daughter Carol, from whose article ‘Reading in the Duke’s ballroom’ the following extracts are taken.  The full article appeared in No. 49 of the Dublin Review five years ago.

 

‘When I came to write about a library, I began to think about community.  And when I thought about community, the first that sprang to mind was one that I had left behind.  In Dublin, we usually went to the library on Saturday mornings.  It was one of the weekend rituals, like trotting to the newsagent along the small path dozens of children had worn through an undeveloped patch of housing estate.  To a six-year-old, the estate was vast, a concrete prairie.  The town we moved to, Athy, seemed more hemmed in.  Passing strangers were much more likely to call you by name to ask if you were doing the messages, or remark on who you looked like, or tell you that they knew your grandfather.  Until we moved there, I didn’t look like anyone but myself.  And I was shy.  Urban anonymity, I quickly decided, suited me much better.  Even now, when I come back to Athy, strangers will tell me they haven’t seen me in ages, or give me something to pass on to my father, or continue a story that they assume I understand……….

 

Athy library is typical of libraries in those small rural towns that the Carnegie movement never reached.  Instead of the Romanesque buildings found in Dublin suburbs, or the contemporary architectural showpieces that popped up in some of the larger provincial towns during the boom, most rural libraries occupy buildings constructed for other purposes: market houses, churches, courthouses.  On a grey day, the streets surrounding Athy library can seem shabby.  The vacant shop windows are multiplying.  But the anchor for these meandering streets is the imposing stone building that divides the large market square, the oldest part of which dates to the 1740s.  It was then a market house with a broad arcade.  By the early nineteenth century that arcade was blocked in with stone, but the building still retained a degree of elegance until a third floor was added in 1913, leaving it fat and heavy, with a more forbidding appearance.  Over the preceding century it had become the administrative centre of the garrison town, serving as courthouse and home to the borough council.  This was where Lord Norbury, the infamous ‘hanging judge’ presided over the trials of those implicated in the rebellion of 1798.  On the front wall, there are still two stone reliefs displaying the scales of justice, one overlaid with the Irish harp, the other with the British crown.  It is in the first-floor ballroom, added by a later duke, that the library now resides……….

 

Reading is a solitary activity, but the library is a social space.  It is a funny contradiction, and one I used to resolve by spending as little time in libraries as possible.  But this modern community library is far from the place I remember.  In the straitened 1980s, Athy library was still housed in a dark room in the courthouse building across the square.  To a small child, it seemed very likely that the librarian had taken inspiration from the magistrates who preceded her.  Getting to the appropriate shelves meant clattering through a series of low chairs and tables that were always too closely spaced.  Clattering back in the opposite direction was not encouraged.  Straying from child to adult sections was not allowed.  Supervision was total.  The strange darkness was a product of the building’s Tudor Revival architecture.  At the back there was still what looked like a barred cell sitting open to the air……….

 

When I visited the library as a child, it was generally for escapism.  And perhaps I spent more time playing outside in the cells than I did in the dank reading room.  I did not pay attention to it, any more than I paid attention to a sense of community, or history, or belonging.  It was simply there.  In the hotchpotch of a building at the centre of the town that houses the current library, I now realize, is stored nearly three centuries of community life.  And I also realize by now that the stories I grew up on, about the town I refused to belong to, long ago seeped in without my noticing.  So I came to understand that this community library is Athy’s natural heart and its best resource.’

 

Sr. Cecilia Hall and Sr. Immaculata of the Sisters of Mercy, Athy

The past is slipping away with a quickening pace which increases as the years pass.  My thoughts as I attended the funeral of Sr. Cecelia Hall, a Sister of Mercy, who entered the convent in Athy almost 77 years ago.  A native of Killenaule, Co. Tipperary, she joined the Sisters of Mercy with her own sister, later Sr. Claude, on 8^th September 1940.  Sister Cecelia and Sr. Claude were just two of the many young female siblings who over the years entered the Convent of Mercy here in Athy.  Families as far afield as the counties on the Western seaboard gave us young girls who devoted their lives as Sisters of Mercy to education, patient care in the County Home, later St. Vincent’s Hospital, and social work among the poor of Athy. 

 

Just eleven days before Sr. Cecilia’s funeral another funeral journey to St. Michael’s Cemetery saw the removal of the remains of Sr. Immaculata to the Sisters of Mercy section of the local cemetery.  The death of these two elderly nuns represents another breach in the extraordinary line up of religious whose lives were committed over a period of almost 165 years to service within our community here in Athy. 

 

I have always been intrigued as to how young girls from counties as far apart as Kerry and Mayo and so distant from the Lily White county came to the convent in Athy.  Was it due to the encouragement of religious in their own parishes to join the Sisters of Mercy and the subsequent distribution by higher authority of postulants to various Mercy houses throughout Ireland?  I gather that those wishing to join the Sisters of Mercy were not encouraged to enter convents in their own area and so movement throughout the country was an inevitable consequence.  Even though local girls were generally encouraged to enter convents some distance from their native towns there are several instances where a number of local girls had joined the local convent.  Amongst these were a  sister of Dan Carbery of St. John’s who was professed as Sr. Frances de Sales and Sr. Michael, one-time superioress of the convent who was a Hickey from Kilberry. 

 

The enormous contribution which the Sisters of Mercy made to education and the welfare of our local community can never be adequately measured.  However, as I wrote at the top of this piece the past is slipping fast.  As each member of the Sisters of Mercy pass away their legacy recedes further and further.  Not too many years ago the extensive building known as the Convent of Mercy housed a full complement of nuns and postulants.  The convent closed in May 2000 and the aging Sisters of Mercy left behind in the grounds of their old convent the small cemetery which held the remains of the nuns who died over the years.  The first death was recorded on 29^th April 1866 with the passing of a young postulant, Mary Ryan.  She was one of three Ryan sisters who entered the convent in Athy less than 20 years after the Great Famine. 

 

The new St. Michaels Cemetery now has a section reserved for the Sisters of Mercy as it has for the Christian Brothers and members of the clergy who died in recent years.  Sadly the Sisters of Mercy who died during the currency of the Mercy convent remain in the small cemetery which was attached to that convent.  The subsequent development of apartments in the vicinity of the cemetery has consigned that sacred space to virtual obscurity which given the proud history of the Sisters of Mercy in Athy is a sad reflection on our passing history. 

 

The past is slipping away, especially that past which was inhabited by religious sisters and brothers.  They came to Athy just a few years after the Great Famine to provide badly needed education for young boys and girls of the area who up to then lived without much hope of improving their lives.  The Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers gave you, me and many others the opportunities which come with education.  Their value to our community and Irish society in general cannot and should never be understated. 

 

As the past slips away there is always a danger that even people and events of recent times will be overlooked, misunderstood or incorrectly described.  I came across recently in our local newspapers two references to ‘McDonald Drive’ and in conversation with a few people it would seem that many do not know that the correct name of the estate is ‘McDonnell Drive’.  The estate was built by Athy U.D.C. and opened by the th

[en Minister for Local Government on 24^th September 1953.  It was named after Archdeacon Patrick McDonnell, Parish Priest of St. Michael’s for 28 years who died on 1^st March 1956. 

 

We have a proud history here in Athy, but pride must always be accompanied by accuracy if we are not to confirm Henry Ford’s claim that ‘history is bunk’. 

The Graney Ambush of 24th October, 1922

It was a full house at last week’s lecture in Castledermot organised by the Castledermot local history group.  The lecture delivered by James Durney, author of several books and historian in residence with Kildare County Council, dealt with the Graney ambush in 1922.  The events of that fateful afternoon, Tuesday 24^th October, 1922 were part of the ongoing Irish Civil War which pitched Free State army recruits against those opposed to the Treaty, commonly referred to as the Irregulars. 

 

96 years have passed since the Graney ambush and all those involved are now dead.  Nevertheless the deadly ambush which resulted in the death of four soldiers of the Irish National Army has the potential to re-awaken old controversies.  This was clearly in the mind of Michael Dempsey, Chairman of the Castledermot History Group, when in his opening remarks he referred to the emotive subject and requested restraint in any contributions from the large audience.  The lecture went ahead without any controversy and many in the audience heard for the first time a detailed and accurate account of what happened that day at Graney Cross. 

 

I had previously written of the ambush but was not aware that the Irregulars were part of what James Durney described as the ‘O’Connell Column’.  The O’Connell in question was Thomas O’Connell, vice commander of the Carlow Brigade 1920-1922 and officer in command 1922-24.  He was a native of Edenderry and worked for Betty O’Donnell’s father Thomas Prendergast in Carlow as a French polisher.  I have written in a previous Eye on the Past of Thomas O’Connell and of the memorial cross erected near Maganey where he was killed in a road traffic accident on 31^st August 1924.  That memorial cross was presented by Mrs. Kearney of Brown St., Carlow to the members of the Old I.R.A. Carlow for erection at the Maganey accident scene.  Regrettably the cross was broken and stolen about three years ago and now only the base of the memorial remains just a few miles distant from the Graney crossroads where O’Connell and his men ambushed their former comrades.

 

The place chosen for the ambush was where four roads converged at what is known as Graney Cross.  Earlier in the day Free State soldiers under Comdt. Hugh Kenny travelled in a Crossley Tender from Baltinglass for Athy.  Between Castledermot and Athy the Tender ran out of petrol and one of the soldiers went into Athy to get a supply.  On his return the Comdt. decided to go back to Baltinglass and after stopping at Castledermot Post Office for a few minutes continued on the road towards Graney.  Unknown to the Free State soldiers Thomas O’Connell, who with his comrades had taken the Anti-Treaty side, having learned of the soldiers earlier trip through Castldermot and their likely return, set up the ambush at Graney.  All of the ambushers have not been positively identified but amongst those who have been were Laurence O’Neill, James Lillis, Christopher Murphy, Thomas Toole, John Shannon, James Rice, Mick Woods, Ned Kane, Hugh O’Rourke, Seamus O’Toole and Myles Carroll.

 

Three Free State soldiers were killed that day.  They were James Murphy of Baltinglass, Edward Byrne of Hacketstown and Patrick Allison of Carlow.  A fourth soldier, James Hunt, the driver of the Crossly tender, died the following Saturday.

 

Thomas O’Connell was subsequently captured and imprisoned, but he managed to escape and was on the run for over a year.  James Lillis was later captured and imprisoned in Carlow Military Barracks where he was executed on 15^th January, 1923.  Lillis as adjutant of the Carlow Brigade was one of three officers who entered the Sinn Fein hall in Castledermot on 15^th June 1922 to take the hall from Irregular troops.  One of the Irregulars, Thomas Dunne, was shot that day.  Ned Kane from Castledermot was also captured and imprisoned in Carlow and like Lillis was to be executed.  However, with the help of Paddy Cosgrave, another Castledermot men and a high ranking Free State army officer, he was spirited out of the prison and allowed to go on the run.  Seamus O’Toole and Myles Carroll were shot by Free State soldiers at Shean less than two months after the Graney ambush.  O’Toole died at the scene of the shooting, while Carroll died soon afterwards.

 

Thomas O’Connell’s involvement in the War of Independence and the subsequent Civil War and that of his brother Patrick’s service as a British soldier during World War I indicates the apparent and sometimes obvious conflict in allegiances which prevailed in Irish society and amongst Irish families of that time.  Thomas O’Connell’s brother Patrick had joined the Royal Irish Regiment in December 1915 and was killed at Cambrai on 30^th November 1917.

 

The Civil War was a ruthless cycle of ambushes, killings and executions which left a legacy of bitterness for years afterwards.  Those involved have now passed on and today’s generation can look back at those years of war free of bitterness to hear the stories that for decades remained untold.

 

Athy#s Historical Society and Seamus Hughes' dissertation on the Grant Canal

The recently formed Athy Historical Society has arranged a spring lecture series to commence with a lecture on Thursday 8^th February.  The lectures will be held in the Heritage Centre on the second Thursday of each month at 7.30 p.m.  Admission to all lectures is free. 

 

The first lecture in the series will be given by Marc Guernon under the title ‘No field is innocent’ - the hidden archaeology of South Kildare’.  Marc was part of the archaeological team which excavated the medieval village of Ardreigh prior to the re-alignment of the Carlow Road some years ago.  The second lecture which will take place on Thursday 8^th March will deal with ‘Athy and the Great War’.  The lecturer, Clem Roche, published his book ‘Athy and District World War I Roll of Honour 1914-1918’ last year and copies are for sale in the Heritage Centre.  The final lecture scheduled for Thursday 12^th April will feature Colm Flynn whose talk under the title ‘Where are you coming from and where are you going?’ will give a detailed exposition of the old roads of South Kildare.  Colm’s book ‘A Tie to the Land’ is available for sale in the Gem.

 

The developing interest in local history and family history has witnessed the release of an ever-increasing list of publications on the subjects, while regretfully much research at local level remains largely unpublished.  I was particularly pleased to receive some time ago a copy of a dissertation researched and written by local man, Seamus Hughes, as part of his studies in Carlow College.  His subject was the Grand Canal which is of particular relevance to someone bearing the Hughes name as several generations of that family were bargemen on the Grand Canal and the Barrow Line over the years.

 

Seamus noted that work on the construction of the canal between Monasterevin and Athy commenced in 1789.  The canal from Dublin to Monasterevin had been completed in 1785 and the intention was to enter the River Barrow at Monasterevin and continue the journey downstream towards Athy and beyond.  However, the river between the two south Kildare towns proved to be shallow at various points and the decision was taken to extend the canal to Athy.  Work on the new stretch of the canal was undertaken by a number of private contractors, all of whom were allocated sections of approximately one mile in length to work on.  The engineer in charge was Richard Evans, assisted by William Rhodes, James Oates and Archibold Miller.  Evans’s involvement with other projects which he was reluctant to give up led to him being relieved of his duties and his three assistants took over responsibility for overseeing the work of the various contractors.  By April 1790 Archibold Miller had taken on the role of head engineer to the Grand Canal Company.

 

Seamus discloses that in April 1790 3,944 men were working on the canal construction works between Monasterevin and Athy.  By March of the following year the canal was open to trade and passenger boats as far as Athy, although final work on the canal locks was still being undertaken. 

 

The extension of the canal to Athy brought the possibility of huge changes to the south Kildare town.  Canal transport offered tremendous commercial opportunities which were to some extent hampered or delayed by the 1798 rebellion.  The uprising in and around Athy was the subject of local man Patrick O’Kelly’s book on 1798 and the savagery with which the rebels attempt to secure religious and parliamentary freedom was met militated against the possibility of maximising the commercial benefits which should have flowed from the new canal transport system.  In the post 1798 period the country remained unsettled and while the Grand Canal company operated a passenger boat service linking Athy and Dublin it could not hope to compete with the railway company when the railway line was extended to Athy in 1847.  Passenger boat services on the Grand Canal ceased in 1852, while the transport of commercial cargo continued fitfully until 1960.  Seamus Hughes concluded his study by acknowledging that the Grand Canal was of vital importance in the commercialisation of towns, including Athy, which were connected to Dublin by the work of 18^th century labourers.

 

Today the Grand Canal and the Barrow line have taken on a different role.  Passenger traffic and the transport of cargo have been replaced by leisure boating.  Athy’s town centre harbour is now home to a variety of boats bringing life back to the ancient river which had not seen much activity for decades past.  The proposed development of the Barrow Blueway between Lowtown and St. Mullins with a possible waterway hub in Athy offers huge potential for Athy similar in many ways to that which followed the coming of the Grand Canal in 1791 and the arrival of the railway in 1847.

John Murphy and Nora Walsh

Youthful memories came to mind when I learned of the death last week in Dublin of John Murphy.  The Murphy family lived in St. Michael’s Terrace and Sean, as he was then called, attended school in the local Christian Brothers.  He was a few years younger than myself but Sean, a naturally gregarious youngster, and a wonderful musician, forged friendships which crossed age differences and district divides.  He came into his own when he finished school and got a job in the laboratory of Bowaters (Wallboard) Factory at Tomard.  There under the supervision of Jim Flanagan, the laboratory chemist, he worked with George Robinson, Pat Daly, Tom Flood and many others. 

 

A good musician, adept at playing the piano and guitar, Sean a few times joined his work colleague George Robinson as an occasional member of Paddens Murphy’s Sorrento Dance Band.  I recall Frank English and myself on a day trip to Tramore meeting up with Sean and some of his Leinster Street friends in a local hostelry.  There was Sean, his tall lanky frame bent over a piano which he played while standing up, his hands moving rhythmically across the keys, while his head and shoulders bobbed in unison to the music.  His was a magical performance as the tunes tumbled out without a pause, each piece taking on a foot tapping life of its own, filling the room with a seamless sound of honky tonk music.  That was Sean Murphy in his element as he went through the entire musical repertoire of Fats Domino, finishing with his own particular favourite ‘I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill’.  That was an exciting musical performance I never forgot.

 

I subsequently met Sean around the time of his retirement from the Garda Siochana.  A welcome greeting in the Jervis Street shopping centre in Dublin brought us together for the first time in almost 40 years and allowed us to renew acquaintances.  Sean later shared with me many photographs of the variety shows put on by the local factories in St. John’s Hall in the 1960s, in some of which he had featured.  Many of these photographs featured in past Eyes on the Past.  Sean had been a member of the Garda Siochana in Raheny for a number of years and it was from there that he retired, continuing to live in the locality where he died last week.  He was the second member of the Murphy family to join the Garda Siochana, his brother Des being a Sergeant, based I believe, in Co. Westmeath, where he died. 

 

Youthful memories were also brought to the fore with the passing of Nora Walsh who died during the week at 88 years of age.  Nora, like myself, was a native of the black and amber county and she came to Athy in 1953 to work in Jim Clancy’s Bar on Leinster Street.  In 1957 she married Tommy Walsh who was a shop assistant in M.G. Nolan’s drapery shop, now Moore’s chemist shop, in Duke Street.  With his father Dave Tommy was a member of St. John’s Social Club and both were noted members of the Social Club’s Dramatic Society and featured in many of the plays put on in the Town Hall and St. John’s Hall throughout the late 1940s and the 1950s.

 

I was a very young school boy when Tommy Walsh and Nora Kenna first crossed my horizon.  They were a young glamorous couple who many of my age and older will remember were active members of the Social Club in St. John’s lane for many years.  The Social Club and that much older local organisation, the C.Y.M.S., one catering for mixed membership, the other exclusively male, in the 1950’s and earlier played important roles in the social life of Athy.

 

Writing of people and places of 50 years ago I am conscious of the many changes which have taken place in Athy during that period.  The Murphy family have now all gone and the only permanent reminder we have of their time in Athy is the skilled work of their father Joe who built the fine cut stone entrance to the former Dominican Church at the end of Convent Lane.  M.G. Nolan’s drapery store, once a long-established business on Duke Street, is no more, while M.G. himself, who for decades was a County Councillor and an Urban Councillor, is but a memory for an older generation.  The C.Y.M.S. and the Social Club have disappeared from the local community scene, while the Wallboard factory was yet another loss in the everchanging panorama of life in Athy.

 

The passing of Sean Murphy and Nora Walsh creates more vacant spaces in the line up of youthful memories.  Our sympathies are extended to their families.

Kildare Archaeological Society's first outing 3rd September, 1891

Kildare Archaeological Society Journal for 2016/2017 was published recently.  The Journal which has now reached Part I of Volume 21 has developed over the last 25 years under the editorship of Professor Raymond Gillespie of Maynooth University to become one of the finest journals of its type in Ireland. 

 

The Archaeological Society was founded at a meeting in Palmerstown House on Saturday 25^th April 1891.  The Society’s purpose was ‘the promotion of study and knowledge of the antiquities and objects of interest in the county of Kildare and surrounding districts.’  In its first year the Society organised what was described as its ‘first annual excursion meeting’ which took place on Thursday, 3^rd September 1891.  A subsequent report of that meeting recounted how ‘the town of Naas was rendered lively in the morning by the constant stream of vehicles passing through on their way to Killashee where the members assembled at 11.30a.m.’

 

An inspection of the subterranean passages in Killashee grounds guided by Rev. Denis Murphy was followed by a talk by the same learned Jesuit in the nearby Killashee Church.  The Society members then returned to Naas where another cleric, this time Archdeacon de Burgh, gave a guided tour of St. David’s Church and the nearby rectory.  The Town Hall in Naas was the venue for lunch and afterwards visits to the nearby north Moat and finally to Jigginstown Castle completed the day’s outing.  A note in the subsequent reports of the outing recorded that the railway company issued return tickets to members at single fares and of course those members in 1891 were able to disembark at the railway station in Naas town.

 

The rules of the Society adapted at the initial meeting in April 1891 stipulated that ‘a journal of the society be published annually’.  The first journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society was published in 1892 and it continued to be published continuously over the following 125 years.  That first journal comprising 44 pages included a number of notes by Lord Walter Fitzgerald of Kilkea Castle who for the remaining 31 years of his life would play an important role in antiquarian research with particular reference to County Kildare. 

The second issue of the journal came to 154 pages and included a number of articles relating to Athy, as well as a report on the Society’s second annual excursion to Athy on 15^th September 1892.  Rev. J. Carroll, previously a curate in Athy, brought the visitors to St. Michael’s medieval Church where he delivered a talk on the 14^th century ruin.  From there the Society members and friends walked to Whites Castle where Dr. Comerford, Coadjutor Bishop of Kildare and Loughlin, gave a talk on the history of Athy.  The Chairman of Athy Town Commissioners had arranged a display of records relating to Athy Borough Council which was abolished in 1840 following which the visitors proceeded to Woodstock Castle where Fr. Carroll gave a talk on its history.  The Journal reported, ‘the company then made the first real use of the brakes and carriages which the society had provided ….. and betook themselves in a long stream of vehicles to the charming residence of Lord and Lady Seaton at Bert.’  There lunch was provided for 150 guests and afterwards Rheban Castle was visited.  Some of the Society members travelled to the Castle by coach across Milltown Bridge, while others walked to the banks of the River Barrow where large boats were ready to bring them to the other side.  There Lord Walter Fitzgerald read a paper on Rheban Castle, following which a majority of the visitors had to return to Athy railway station to catch the ‘evening up train’. 

 

Some sixty of the Society members and friends continued to Grangemellon where they were received by Sir Anthony and Lady Weldon who had invited them to tea at Kilmoroney.  The members were particularly interested in what was described as the ‘wonderful military bridge’ built across the River Barrow by Colonel Weldon.  Sir Anthony Weldon also displayed some of his family treasures including a pair of small tankards presented to Captain William Weldon by the Irish Parliament in 1631 and a watch which once belonged to King Charles I and which came into the Weldon family possession through Bishop William Juxon.  The one-time Bishop of London served as the King’s Chaplain and ministered to Charles I on the scaffold prior to the King’s execution in January 1649.

 

The current Journal has a wide range of interesting articles, including contributions by Castledermot residents Eamon Kane and Dr. Sharon Greene, who was recently appointed editor of ‘Archaeology Ireland’.  Incidentally the objectives of the Archaeological Society have been broadened since its 1891 foundation to include ‘The promotion and knowledge of history, archaeology and antiquities of the county and the surrounding countryside.’  Membership is open to all and persons wishing to join the Society should contact Greg Connelly at Newington House, Christianstown, Co. Kildare.

 

Dell Kane, Eileen McKenna

His right hand reached out as the coffined remains of his neighbour approached near where he stood at the side of the nave central aisle.  He touched the top of the polished oak coffin in a gesture of affection, acknowledging a neighbourly friendship extending back many years.  It was the second time in 18 months that Ned came to St. Michael’s Parish Church to pay his respects to a deceased next-door neighbour.  The previous occasion was the funeral mass for Danny Kane and now it was Danny’s wife Dell who was about to make her final journey to join Danny in St. Michael’s cemetery. 

 

The neighbour’s final farewell was for many in St. Michael’s Church that day an unseen poignant moment in a ceremony marked by a beautifully worded and delivered eulogy given by our new Parish Priest.  His presence at parishioner’s funerals together with that of our beloved past pastor, Fr. Philip Dennehy, confirms and reaffirms the re-emergence of the Parish of St. Michael’s as an important part of family and community life in this part of south Kildare. 

 

Fidelma Kane was one of the fifteen members of the Blanchfield family, an old Athy family with roots extending back for generations.  The Blanchfields for decades lived at the top of Leinster Street from where the head of the family once operated a sawmill.  Fidelma married Danny Kane of Glassealy in 1972 and they had 8 children, 5 boys and 3 girls.  At the funeral Mass their eldest son Gavin spoke with feeling and eloquence of his mother.  His words resonated with me and I was prompted to recall my own mother who died 22 years ago.  My mother and Dell Kane shared qualities which we have come to associate with the best type of Irish motherhood.  Gavin’s address was a wonderful tribute to a mother whom he described as the Kane family glue and the lynchpin for the extended Blanchfield family.  The funeral brought together members of many of the old Athy families who came to remember a well liked woman and her family connections with Athy which stretched back through the generations. 

 

Another death which sadly occurred over the Christmas period was that of Eileen McKenna, whose husband Tom predeceased her by a few short months.  Both Tom and Eileen were regular attendants in St. Michael’s Cemetery for the annual Remembrance Day commemoration for Athy victims of war, particularly those of World War I.  Eileen’s maternal uncle, Michael Byrne, like so many young Athy men who enlisted during the 1914-18 war, died in 1918.  He was one of six World War I soldiers who died during that war and who are buried in the town’s local cemetery.  It was a fate denied to many other Athy men who lost their lives during the Great War, some of whom lie buried in marked graves overseas.  Sadly the remains of many more of their former colleagues and former townsmen were never recovered and deprived of a Christian burial they lie where they died in a strange land undiscovered, unknown and largely forgotten.

 

The lives of these men, no matter how short or how uneventful they may have been within their own community, deserve to be remembered.  This is why in the local Heritage Centre we have sought to highlight the importance of local history, being the history of our local people.  The local is what makes history and it’s the lives of people like Dell Kane and Eileen McKenna which makes Athy what it is today.  Many lives seem ordinary but on closer examination the ordinary can become extraordinary and it is those lives that help shape the character of our local community.  There is always a danger of overlooking the ordinary stories of everyday life, but without those ordinary stories and those ordinary lives we cannot hope to understand how our community has come together with shared experiences and common goals.

 

The simple gesture of the neighbour touching the coffin as it was brought down the nave of St. Michael’s Church brought home to me the importance of community ties established and strengthened by shared experiences.  Athy for all its problems, actual or perceived, is a town where neighbourliness is to the fore and where family life can be enjoyed for the most part in a safe and secure environment. 

 

Over the Christmas period we also lost from our local community Paddy Whelan of Gallowshill, Donal Flanagan of Ardscull, Alice Lawler of Kilberry, Jimmy Connell of St. Joseph’s Terrace, Liam Hyland of Rosebran and Patrick Hayes of Kilcrow.  Our sympathy goes to their families, relatives and friends.

Advertisers in the Sisters of Mercy Year Book 1953/'54

 

The Sisters of Mercy arrived in Athy on 10^th October 1852 to take charge of the newly built convent of St. Michael’s.  The convent was constructed between 1843 and 1852 on a site adjoining the Parish Church.  The foundation stone was laid by the Parish Priest of Castledermot, Fr. Dunne, two years before the start of the Great Famine.  Over the years the Sisters of Mercy caused a number of booklets to be published including a series of annual Year Books in the 1950s.  The Year Books were supported by local business people with a variety of advertisements and perusing the 1953/’54 year book provides a fascinating insight into the changes in the local business world over the last 63 years. 

‘Tosh’ Doyle advertised cars for hire from 15 Patrick’s Avenue, while he undertook cycle repairs at Meeting Lane.  O’Rourke Glynns, with the telephone number Athy 45, had a wide range of items for sale from ices and fruits to stationery, toys and dolls.  I was intrigued by the claim that O’Rourke Glynn’s bread was ‘often buttered but never bettered’ as I don’t recall O’Rourke Glynns having any bread making facilities.  Martin Brophy at 27 Duke Street operated one of the many family grocery businesses in Athy, as well as being a tea, wine and spirit merchant.  S. O’Brien of the Square was similarly engaged, as was M. O’Brien of the Nags Head Inn.  J.P. Dillons of Barrow Quay proudly claimed to be a ‘shop with a growing reputation’ and in addition to being a green grocer its proprietor was also a poulterer.  J. O’Brien of the Railway Bar was another grocer and spirit merchant who also offered trade in ‘coal, corn, linseed meal and general feeding stuffs’. 

Something different was offered by Candys of 15 Leinster St. who claimed to stock ‘everything from a needle to an anchor’.  At 4 Duke Street pork butcher and sausage maker E. Herterich offered ‘cooked meats and puddings’ guaranteeing ‘fresh daily, finest quality only.’  Another car hire business was operated at 5 Meeting Lane by Peter Fitzsimons, while not too far away at 42 Leinster Street M. O’Connor, M.P.S.I. advertised ‘pure medical, toilet and veterinary preparations and high-class cosmetics.’ 

An interesting advertisement for M.A. James of 12 Duke Street offered a printing service for wedding invitations, while also acting as an agent for Allied Libraries Limited.  J.W. Kehoe at Offaly Street declared his business motto as ‘courtesy, service, value’ while advertising his tea, wine, spirit and coal business.  M. Bradley carried on business as a newsagent, stationer and tobacconist at 34 Duke Street, while just up the road at William Street Purcell Bros. were family grocers and butter exporters.  The enterprising brothers also carried on a butchering business at Duke Street.

J.J. Stafford of 43 Duke Street had a radio and electrical shop offering sales, service and repairs.  For your fresh daily milk you could rely on Floods of Stanhope Street who also traded in meal and bran, as well as hardware goods.  One advertiser whom I cannot remember was Cash of 62 Leinster St. who offered sweets, cigarettes, confectionary and minerals.  Two doors away at No. 60 was the sweet and confectionery shop advertised under the name ‘Bergin’ without any elaboration on the name.

Two of the biggest employers on the towns main street were Duthie Large Ltd. and Industrial Vehicles (Ireland) Ltd.  The former as agricultural and water engineers offered for sale cars, trucks, tractors and cycles.  Their business enterprise also extended to offering manures and seeds with hardware and radio repairs.  The I.V.I., as it was commonly known, had a Morris car dealership and were also dealers for McCormick International Tractors covering the counties of Kildare and Carlow.  No mention was made of its foundry work but in addition to car, truck and tractor repairs it offered ‘a petrol service from 8.30 a.m. in the morning’.  Michael Finn advertised his garage at Woodstock offering repairs, sales, battery charging and a ‘filling station’.  Who remembers the Vogue Beauty Parlour at 11 William Street, operated by Rose Cullen who offered amongst other services ‘Devon Cold Wave Perms?’  Tullys will be remembered as travel agents, but in 1954 they were general drapers.  Another advertiser was Michael Kelly of 17 Leinster Street who in addition to being a tea, wine and spirit merchant was also a merchant in timber, iron and seeds.  

The change in the shopping landscape of Athy is evidenced in the disappearance of many of the businesses advertised 63 years ago.  Amongst those businesses still with us are Shaws, Doyles of Woodstock St., Clancys, O’Briens of the Nags Head Inn and O’Briens of Emily Square.  Even the Sisters of Mercy Convent has been transformed into a hotel (now temporarily vacant), while the town of Athy welcomes new businesses as the old gives way to the new.

 

Athy's Commercial Life of the 1920s

Coming out of the recent recession its instructive to look back at times past and see how previous generations were affected by business closures.  At the turn of the last century employment opportunities in Athy and South Kildare were largely to be found in the agricultural sector and during the summer months in the local brick making factories.  The tied farm labourer, provided with a cottage by his farmer employer, worked six days a week. The temporary or part time farm worker, usually from the town of Athy was employed, if at all, during the sowing and harvesting seasons.  For many, however, there was little opportunity of earning an honest shilling.  The call to arms in August 1914 represented a welcome opportunity for many unemployed young men to travel abroad and more importantly to earn a regular wage with quite substantial weekly separation allowances payable to wives and children left at home. 

 

Carriage makers and blacksmiths were an important part of the average Irish provincial towns employment before, during, and for a short time after World War I.  Here in Athy Duke Street was the location of John Glespen’s carriage works, while Hannon’s Mills at Ardreigh and at  Crom a Boo bridge were substantial employers in what was a long-established milling business.  The malting of barley has a long tradition in Athy with many small malting houses once to be found throughout the town.  The old cinema in Offaly Street was the location of one of those malting houses when, unlike today’s operation, malting was very labour intensive.

 

Duthie Larges was the most successful business in Athy in the 1920s.  At the height of the Irish War of Independence, the firm had to let off 40 men because of a military imposed motor restriction order.  That same month, March 1921, saw the imposition of a curfew in Athy.  It followed the execution of six Irishmen in Mountjoy Jail on the 14^th of March.  Those executed included Frank Flood, whose brother Tom would later carry on business in the Railway Hotel in Leinster Street and Patrick Moran who had worked for a time as a barman in Athy.

 

Duthie Large’s would recover in the years following the Civil War, while the long-established malting business of Minch Norton’s which at one time had malting houses at Stanhope Street as well as at the Grand Canal, would survive and prosper in peacetime. 

 

In the early years of the newly established Irish Free State, Urban Council workers were obliged to take a 2 shilling and 6 pence reduction in their weekly wage of 40 shillings.  Around the same time, the Hannon milling business first established by the Haughton family closed.  The workers who lost their jobs looked to the Barrow Drainage Scheme for work while others, encouraged by the local Council’s support for the project, placed their employment hopes on the possibility of a sugar beet factory opening in Athy.  The Council workers who had already seen a reduction in their weekly wage packet in May 1925 found themselves losing another 2 and 6 pence per week five months later. Their reduced wage was 35 shillings per week but even that was not enough to balance the Council’s budget and two workmen, John Ryan and Thomas Donohoe, were let go. 

 

The 1920s was also the start of Henry Hosie’s involvement in the regeneration of Athy’s economic fortunes.  He was the prime mover in the opening up of the Picture Palace in Offaly Street in or around 1925.  I have found a reference to a Cinema Hall in Duke Street in April 1922 but I don’t know if Henry Hosie was involved.  Hosie was also responsible for establishing Industrial Vehicles Ireland Limited, better known as the I.V.I.  He first wrote to the Urban District Council in May 1929 requesting an interview with the members regarding his proposed purchase of part of the Pound Field.  The Council agreed the sale to ‘Captain Hosie as the town is in much need of employment’.   The I.V.I. foundry was the first major factory in Athy and would be followed in 1936 by the Asbestos factory and in 1946 by the Wallboard factory.  All three factories made a huge contribution to the industrialisation of Athy and for a time made industry the main source of employment for the majority of local workers.

 

I’m reminded of the contribution that Hosie made to the improvements of the town’s fortunes every day as I pass down Offaly Street.  That street was home to a vibrant community in the 1950s and is now a pale shadow of its past.  Kitty Webster’s shop is empty and almost derelict, while the adjoining public house is closed with broken front windows protected by timber planks.  The conversion of Guard Tuohy’s house into a shop premises is unfinished, and the unfinished work adds to the miserable state of the once proud street, which misery is compounded by the nearby vacant former cinema premises.

 

Athy needs a modern-day Henry Hosie to advance the regeneration plan announced with much enthusiasm two years ago, if our town is to retain its former position as a vibrant business town.

 

A happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year to all readers of the Eye.

 

 

 

'While Shepherds Watch' and Athy's Musical Heritage

‘While Shepherds Watched’, a musical extravaganza for Christmas, will take place in St. Michael’s Parish Church on Tuesday, 19^th December starting at 8p.m.  This year’s performance will be the 25^th year of this annual Christmas celebration which was first staged in the Dominican Church in December 1992.  The late Paul Stafford directed that first ‘While Shepherds Watched’, with Ann Marie Heskins as musical director and Eileen Doyle as choir conductor.  For the following 22 years the show was put on in the Dominican Church and it was only in 2015 that the Christmas show transferred to the east bank of the Barrow and St. Michael’s Parish Church. 

 

Athy has a long tradition of music making.  When next you visit the Carlow County Museum you can see a poster from the early part of the last century advertising a concert in Carlow town which featured members of Athy’s musical society.  Many of the locals involved were no doubt members of the Moonbeam Entertainment Group which put on shows in Athy during the first World War years.  Hanging on the wall of my office is a large poster for a ‘Grand Concert in aid of the Red Cross Fund’ which took place in the Town Hall on Thursday, 18^th January 1918.  The entertainers included the Misses Cranwell, Ashmore, Fennell, Nolan, Mr. R. Evans, Rev. P. Kellett, Rev. A.C. Lockett and Mr. Wilson Kelly humourist.  The Moonbeam entertainers put on shows throughout 1921 and 1922 in the local Town Hall and in 1923 in the Comrades Hall.  Those taking part in those latter shows included Mr. and Mrs. Painting, Miss Hosie, Mr. McElwee, Miss Cecil, Miss Toomey and Mr. R. Youell. 

 

Several other musical societies have brightened up the local cultural scene here in Athy over the last 100 years or so.  The Athy Musical Society, founded in the last year of the Second World War, was particularly active during the latter part of the 1940s.  The annual show put on in the Town Hall brought together a wide range of talents supported by a large cast of local men and women.  The participants in those early shows were captured in black and white photographs which today are a reminder of the great musical performances of the 1940s.  The older readers of this column would remember the musicals ‘White Bread and Apple Sauce’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Dick Whittington’, ‘Easter Parade’ and ‘Orchards and Onions’.  Names associated with those great shows include May Ward, May Fenelon, Paddy Timpson, Tom Whyte, Peggy Glynn, Dan Meany, Veronica Keane, Betty May, Barney Davis and Jim Dargan.  There were so many other Athy locals who appeared on the Town Hall stage as members of the Athy Musical Society but space does not allow me to add their names to this list.

 

1963 saw the emergence of another musical society in Athy, the South Kildare Choral Society.  Under the direction of Captain Denis Mellerick of the Army School of Music, that society staged several musicals in the Grove Cinema including ‘The Mikado’ and ‘The Arcadian’.  In 1984 the Athy Musical and Dramatic Society was formed and its first stage show was ‘Happy Days are here again’.  This was followed by ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ in 1987, ‘Carousel’ the following year, ‘Oklahoma’ in 1989 and ‘My Fair Lady’ in 1990.  Later still the Society featured ‘Guys and Dolls’ and ‘Brigadoon’, in addition to a number of dramas including ‘Juno and the Paycock’ and ‘The Year of the Hiker’.  Now 33 years after its foundation Athy’s Musical and Dramatic Society will stage ‘While Shepherds Watched’ on Tuesday 19^th December.  It promises to be an enjoyable evening’s entertainment, with the net proceeds from the evenings show going to Pieta House charity.

 

The musical tradition of the South Kildare Region also found a champion in Brian Lawler who was sadly laid to rest in his native Kilmead last weekend.  As founder and leader of the Ardellis Ceili band his contribution to Irish traditional music was widely recognised and the band’s popularity during the late 1950s matched that of the legendary Gallowglass Ceili band.  Indeed both bands featured many times on Radio Eireann.  The South Kildare townland of Ardellis will be forever associated with Irish traditional music thanks to the late Brian Lawler.

 

On Thursday 14^th December the recently formed Athy Historical Society will host a lecture by Dr. Sharon Greene who was recently appointed editor of the Archaeology Ireland Journal.  The topic is ‘Kathleen Shackleton, artist, illustrator, artic traveller and Blackfoot Indian’.  The lecture for which there is no charge starts at 7.30 p.m. in the Heritage Centre.  Anyone interested in becoming a member of Athy’s newly formed historical society can join on the night, or do so by calling into the Heritage Centre.